


glory (at any cost)

by daekie



Category: Pyre - Fandom
Genre: Disabled Character, Gen, Nonbinary Character, Poison, hurt/comfort but it's only the hurt part, reader is nonbinary and has chronic pain, vomiting warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 10:02:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11965095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daekie/pseuds/daekie
Summary: The Reader fails to take precautions when foraging.Udmildhe will stop at nothing to win, especially against such a brat as the Nightwings have fielded as their reader.





	glory (at any cost)

It comes on relatively slowly, really; at the beginning of the Rite, when the celestial orb first falls from the sky to mark the halfway point between the Nightwings and the Withdrawn, the Reader feels their fingers shake and has to take a second to swallow it down - the orb looks fuzzy, a little blurry, but they blink and it's okay.  All the fabric feels rough on their skin, like always, but they have taken to wearing Hedwyn's rainments since he was liberated - they feel better about their participation, if they can pretend to be part of it, even if the cincher makes their chest shudder and shake for breath sometimes and when they get out of it they have to resist the urge to  _scratch scratch scratch_ every bit of offending skin off - like this, they feel every hit their fielded Nightwings take; when a pounce throws Kae to the ground they feel clawed hands on their chest, when Pamitha is banished mid-flight they feel the dizziness of losing control and falling before nothing at all - they control better, this way.  They make for more of a conductor if it's not just from above. 

So they hurt, when the Rite starts; but it should mean nothing.  They always hurt, and some days it's more, some days it's less.  Maybe it's just a more thing.  Entrenched in the minds of their friends, they can ignore their aches and pains -

and the Reader shakes and shivers and coughs, and it feels like their entire connection to the Rites has been severed - they can still feel it, in their head, it's so easy - but they hurt, they  _hurt_ , and they have to - they have to continue.  Udmildhe is no merciful opponent, and if they give up just because it's a bad pain day, she will win and they will  _lose_ and they can't let her win, they hate her, they  _hate_ her - 

something wet rolls down their face and drips on the book

(it is very, very red)

(how long has this rite been going on for?  who are they?  who are they?  the pain is so intense, so sudden, they can't regroup; they are ripped out of the minds with no base to return to, no focus)

Volfred (who?) is murmuring, nearby; whatever he's saying must not be important, because it sounds awfully quiet, awfully muffled.  They reach out again, again,  _again_ and pull Ti'zo out of the way of an aura-cast, and he zips in towards a too-close Crone to take her with him in an implosion; and Kae skips and runs and rolls into the enemy Pyre; it's running low - it's running low - the heat from the Pyre, from both the Pyres, feels so hot on their skin.  They're burning up.  They're burning up, not even in the Pyre - Pamitha falls mid-flight and catches herself and Kae isn't back yet and Ti'zo is - so small.  They can't reach him.  They can't touch him.  He's too far off.

(Volfred is louder.  They can't hear him, so it must not be important.  It sounds like he's calling through water.)

The Reader coughs, harsh and ugly and terrible, and the pages of the Book in their hands are speckled through with more-and-more red and red and red and it feels like it's coming faster and faster - it's not all from their mouth (whose mouth? it's not Pamitha's, but they can feel her coughing like an echo, harsh spittle at the back of her throat) but their ears are wet, their nose, their lips; their teeth feel gritty and torn-away and there is the taste of acid in their mouth and and and

_And it is done!_

the blood has soaked through the pages and they are shaking so hard they are shaking so hard, and Volfred has his hands on their shoulders and the book is on the ground (what ground? is it the pyre-floor, the sigil-glass, is it the dirt beneath them; is it the grass of the overlook, the wagon, the distant starry space beyond an outlook) - the cincher feels so horrible on their ribs, and their skin is red-hot and the rainments are slick to their skin with sweat and Volfred is a blurry grey streak in their sight - they double over and vomit and it burns, it burns, it burns coming up and it won't stop; their sick is dark and speckled with grains, red grains, and - oh.  They're bleeding?  They're bleeding?  Oh.  Oh.  Oh, so that's-

they can't  _breathe they can't breathe they can't b_ r re a t h e th e  y c

c a n 't

  they can 't  b  r e   a t h e

it's                       so                                                red 

 

 

it's so dark


End file.
